Cambodia - Siem Reap

After a quick stop overnight in Kuala Lumpur, we flew to Siem Reap. It felt really good to be back again, the town had grown substantially since we were there two years ago. We had booked a hotel which had a pool, so spent two nights there. However, on a foray into town, one of the bars was advertising room for 15 dollars a night, nice room with all mod cons including free wifi – so we moved! It didn’t have a pool, but when the pool temperature is mid 30’s, its not that much of an attraction to be honest!
We had pretty much done the whole Siem Reap Temple trail when we were last there but we couldn’t resist going back to Angkor Wat to see the sunset. It turned out that there wasn’t much of a sunset that night but Angkor Wat was just as impressive second time round.
Siem Reap is a great place to just chill out and thats pretty much what we did. We revisited Dr Feet, our favourite foot massage parlour – of all the places our feet have been massaged, this is definitely the best!

Bang Melea

We wanted to go and see a temple called Bang Melea which was a bit further afield, 70 Kms from Siem Reap to be precise! We had read about it and although it was pretty much in ruins, it was worth going to see. We had found a really reliable tuk tuk driver (Mean, pronounced Mee-Ann) who had been ferrying us around and he agreed to take us there. It took two hours in his tuk tuk which was fairly interesting in itself, he stopped on the way so to show us the sticky rice sellers – basically its rice, coconut and black beans stuffed into a piece of bamboo, its then cooked on an open fire. We bought some and Tim thought it was pretty good, I wasn’t so keen, it tasted a little bit like rice pudding, but not enough if that makes sense – cue longing for a tin of ambrosia!
What we had read about the temple was very accurate, ie it was a ruin. In places, you had to clamber and climb to enable to see it properly. Although it was falling down, some sections were still intact, the sheer scale of it amazed us. As its off the tourist trail, we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Bang Melea

We also had a good wander round the markets in Siem Reap and had some great dinners – Cambodia was once under French rule, so the bread is wonderful, it felt a real treat after some of the places we have been.

Cambodia - Siem Reap

Siem Reap, Cambodia